This invention is an electronically powered gaseous fluid pump. It contains unique design features that combine to minimize its size, weight, power consumption and mechanical vibration.
This pump was developed for use in a portable oxygen concentrator that provides portable supplementary oxygen to patients with lowered blood oxygen levels. The concentrator is much lighter, smaller and quieter than competing devices and is the only one that can be conveniently worn by the user as they move about rather than wheeled on a cart or carried like a piece of luggage. The pump consumes most of the concentrator electrical power input, accounts for over half the total weight and is the largest component in the concentrator. Minimizing size, weight, power consumption and vibration of the pump contributed directly to the portability advantages of the concentrator. No commercially available pump would meet the size, weight and power consumption goals of that concentrator design. The pump design disclosed here can be scaled for larger or smaller pumping capacity and pressure ranges to provide benefits in other applications.